Misconceived Military Shuffle

Editorial

The New York Times

August 17, 2004

The troop redeployment plan announced yesterday by President Bush makes little long-term strategic sense.
It is certain to strain crucial alliances, increase overall costs and
dangerously weaken deterrence on the Korean peninsula at the worst possible
moment. Meanwhile, it will do nothing to address the military's most pressing
current need: relieving the chronic strain on ground forces that has resulted
from failing to anticipate the long, and largely unilateral, American occupation
of Iraq.

Mr. Bush provided few new details yesterday, confirming only
that over the next 10 years, about 60,000 to 70,000 uniformed troops, along with
some 100,000 family members and civilian employees, would be transferred from
bases and other military installations in Europe and Asia to the United States.

It has been known for some time that the Pentagon wants to pull back
perhaps half of the roughly 70,000 soldiers now in Germany and a third of the
nearly 40,000 troops in South Korea. Further cuts in Europe and Asia will be
needed to reach Mr. Bush's totals, especially since some of those withdrawn
from South Korea may be headed toward other parts of Asia.

The Bush
administration justifies these movements by pointing to fundamental changes in
the geography of threats since the end of the cold war. In Asia, however, that
geography has not changed all that much.

The most dangerous threat
still comes from North Korea, which is now thought to be building nuclear
weapons. At a time when negotiating a halt to that buildup is imperative,
Washington has inexplicably granted Pyongyang something it has long coveted - a
reduction in American troop levels - instead of building those reductions into a
bargaining proposal requiring constructive North Korean moves in return. The
Korean pullback also sends a dangerous signal to the North that America is
devaluing its alliance with South Korea.

In Europe, the withdrawals are
less immediately dangerous, but they will be expensive because Germany pays a
hefty share of the costs for the American military bases located there.

While sending military personnel back to Kansas or Colorado may avert some base
closings and make local politicians happy, it will cost the taxpayers money.
Furthermore, the military will also lose the advantage that comes with giving
large numbers of its men and women the experience of living in other cultures.

The administration seems to be planning to establish new installations
in Eastern Europe, but they are more likely to be used for occasional exercises
than as permanent bases. An increased presence in Eastern Europe is fine, but
it need not come at the expense of our German bases. Although it is certainly
true that American troops no longer have to sit in Germany to protect Western
Europe from the Red Army, many of today's battlefields, like Iraq and
Afghanistan, are in fact closer to Germany than they are to the United States.

The Pentagon is right to stress lighter, more mobile Army brigades. It
is also good to aim to reduce the number of job and location changes in a
typical Army career. With the huge personnel demands of Iraqi operations
forcing repeated tours, extended tours and involuntary callbacks, such sensible
steps aimed at raising morale and encouraging re-enlistments are welcome. But
over all, this plan marches in the wrong direction. Instead of reflecting and
reinforcing America's core alliances, the new plan dilutes them.

Despite
the Pentagon's denials, it seems deliberate that the two largest withdrawals
have been proposed for countries that the Bush administration has had serious
differences with in recent years, over Iraq in the German case, and over
negotiating strategy with North Korea in the case of Seoul. Both countries have
been working hard to patch up relations - South Korea is one of the few American
allies with troops in Iraq - but the Pentagon does not seem interested in
reciprocating.